The Paradox
by Reader-Writer-Animator
Summary: A ground bridge malfunction left Optimus stranded in another dimension. But I, Lyra, gave him the means to get back.


**I do not own Transformers Prime.**

* * *

Optimus stood, waiting for Ratchet to finish up so that he could ground bridge him off to patrol. There were a few sparks and then Ratchet closed the compartment with a bang. "All set.", the medibot announced, standing up and stretching his servos. He then pulled the lever and the ground bridge swirled into existence.

Optimus quickly and smoothly transformed into his truck form. "Inform the others that they are to go out for their respective duties after they come back from picking the children up from their educational center."

"Yes, yes." waved the medic. "Off you go." And Optimus rolled out.

This ground bridge seemed rather odd to Optimus. For one thing, it continued on for an unusual amount of time. For another, the lights looked to be moving in slow motion, not weaving through each other at their usual pace. Lastly, there were a few red bits of light moving every now and then, a sure sign if any that something was wrong. But Ratchet had just fixed it up after the scraplet incident, so it would not make any sense if there was a ground bridge malfunction. Hence, Optimus persevered, gunned his engine and pulled on.

He emerged on the other side and stopped immediately. On this side of the planet, the sun was just about to set (he had yet to fully grasp this planet's orbital rhythms.) There were sandy-colored rocks of varying sizes and shapes to all sides of him, except in front, where there was a dusty road. In short, he was in rocky, dry surroundings-not much different from the ones he'd left, really. This made him prickle with unease. This part of California was supposed to have beaches, not deserts.

Behind him, all the lights fizzled out as the ground bridge closed. Then, they reappeared and attacked him.

He panicked in a most un-Prime like way. Was he having hallucinations? Was this a Decepticon trick? Or worse, was there a glitch in his systems? He did not know the answer.

The lights zapped him, causing him pain. But the damage they caused was all insubstantial. Nothing went into his interiors (although it did a pretty good job of wrecking his paint.) Bam! There went his windshield.

Suddenly, all the lights went out. The Prime waited for them to come back, but they did not. He decided to run a self diagnostic. All systems were online and fully functional. But his energon levels were dangerously low - at this rate, in just a day, he would be put into stasis lock. What had the bolts of light done? Sucked up his energon?

He heard a sound that he would recognize anywhere: a truck engine. He turned off his headlights. Hopefully, the drivers wouldn't notice him…

"Hey, Jay, what's this?" The truck engine stopped and a door opened.

"Well, it looks like a truck, so I'd say that it's truck." Said 'Jay' sarcastically.

"Any fool could see that. But it looks pretty banged up…"

"The owners must have trashed the thing."

"I think I could take it home and fix it up."

Jay laughed."Martin! You crazy? Whatcha gonna use, tow truck?"

"I could."

"All you ever seem to do is fix things up, break 'em down to see how they work, then fix 'em up again."

"Mechanics is my hobby!" Martin protested. "And I don't need a tow truck. I could just use ours."

"No way!"

"Aw, come on, man, I let you stop for your thing, you have to help me out too."

"Alright, alright, but we'd better get back on the job quick, we have four more deliveries to make, remember?"

The men continued to talk as they hitched Optimus to their truck. He sighed internally. He was being towed. How humiliating. There was nothing he could do about it without blowing his cover, and Agent Fowler would blow a gasket if he did.

He decided that one of Arcee's curse words would fit the situation quite nicely. As a Prime, he was usually forbidden from saying them, since he was supposed to set an example. But rules, according to Miko, were made for breaking. In this moment, he was inclined to listen to her advice. _Scrap…_

The truck engine started up again, and he was jolted back to reality. Optimus' wheels seemingly moved of their own accord as he glided along behind Martin and Jay's truck. He decided to slip into recharge as he needed to conserve his energon reserves and to better disguise himself as a normal vehicle. Everything went black…

* * *

He woke up in extremely dimly lighted surroundings. The light was just enough to see the outlines of a few boxes, but that was it. He didn't dare turn on his headlights to see better, though. Then, he noticed that his old windshield, broken by the weird lights from the ground bridge, had been replaced with a shiny new one.

He needed to contact Ratchet and get out of this place. But when he accessed his comm. link, all he got was static.

Suddenly, the door opened. Light flooded into the room.

"Going somewhere?" a young female voice called out. It was unmistakably human and not unlike Miko's, but a little less high-pitched. Optimus did not respond.

"Although, being an Autobot, you probably couldn't, with me witnessing it."

Optimus forced his panic down and did not move a micron from his spot. This human knew he was an Autobot! But how?

"Yeah, I know all about you. You're Optimus Prime. But the question is, which one? Movie, G1, Animated… or Prime? I mean, I haven't seen any other versions." The girl flicked on the light.

Now Optimus wasn't panicking - just confused. Who was this girl, and how did she know his name?

Now that the light had been switched on, Optimus could see the entire girl and not just her outline. She had reddish brown hair, tied in some sort of tail, like Miko, except she had only one and it was behind her head. Her eye color was similar, if not the same, as her hair. She was wearing a light green T-shirt and dark blue jeans.

He also noticed that he was in some sort of a human car housing unit. He'd seen one at the Darby's house, too. Boxes of various sizes were scattered around. Some tools were lying on a wooden workbench in the far corner of the room. And there were a few shelves on the wall opposite the door.

In human terms, he was in a garage.

"I'm Lyra Brown. Awesome to meet you!" Suddenly, she stared straight ahead, onto Optimus' blindside. Her expression was one of fear. "Decepticons!" She exclaimed in a frightened voice.

Optimus transformed, brought out his blaster and turned around. He crouched, due to the extremely low ceiling. No Decepticons. Then he realized that Lyra was laughing.

"You are so easy to fool! I knew that would get you!"

"War is not a game." He said in a low but firm rumble, wondering if all human femmes were this mischievous.

Lyra stopped laughing."I know. But you have got to realize that you're in trouble here. Major trouble. And I'm not talking about 'Cons."

"Meaning?"

"You... you probably aren't even in your own dimension. Ground bridge malfunction, right?"

"How did you arrive at this conclusion?"

Lyra ignored him. "The thing is, in this dimension, everybody know who you are."

"How?" he said struggling to keep the shock out of his voice.

Lyra shook her head. "It's not what you're thinking. Look, Transformers is a really popular franchise. Games, movies, T.V. shows, toys – you name it, they've made it. And everybody thinks it's awesome. Almost every kid likes the stuff. Including me. Which is why I could recognize you." She explained.

The Prime nodded in realization. "So, any human child would be able to recognize who I am on seeing me."

"Almost any." She confirmed. "Speaking of that, I think you are from Prime. Yeah, definitely. You know Jack, Raf and Miko?" He nodded. Lyra grinned. "I knew it! But the important thing is, does your team know that your ground bridge malfunctioned?"

"I have no way of knowing for sure."

"Then you'd better text them, since you can't comm. them… Right?"

He nodded and she pulled out her cell phone: a very, very old model."As long as you have Jack, Miko or Raf's phone number. And I know, it's a hand-me-down." she added.

"Jack's number is 461-555-8213. Do you require Miko's?" *****

"Nah, it's fine. Jack will get it. I've sent a text saying that you are in a different dimension. And that you need pick up in ten minutes. Okay?"

The Prime gave another nod. "In that case, I should head back to my previous location to wait for a ground bridge." He transformed back into truck mode; his pedes were cramped from crouching for so long.

"Wait!" said Lyra, her hand held up in a _stop_ gesture. "You don't know where it is!"

If he were in robot mode, Optimus would have raised an optic ridge. "Do you know? As per my recollection, you weren't there."

"Yeah, but I do know the approximate location." She defended. "Dad told me last night."

"Last night?" he asked, confused. "And in case it is morning, shouldn't you be in your educational center?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "Dad brought you in last night, wanting to fix you up. It's a hobby of his. He did really fix you up, though. Buffed you and all that. I'm guessing you were in power down the whole time. He's at work right now. And I don't have school, 'cause it's Saturday." She finished.

"Very well." He said, satisfied with her explanation. "I will need to take you along with me, to determine the location – if you are willing. Will you be able to get back to your housing unit easily enough?"

"Don't worry, it's only a little way away. I can walk." She reassured him. He opened his cab door readily. But she did not get in. Instead, she glanced around, as if looking for something. "What are you…"

"I'm trying to find the garage door remote." She said. "You won't be able to get out otherwise." Optimus felt a little stupid for not noticing that. So he waited patiently until she found it, kept on top of one of the boxes. She pressed the big yellow button on it and the garage door opened with a creaky, complaining noise. Lyra ran over and hopped into the cab. "Alright… Autobots, roll out!"

Optimus as she burst into giggles. "Sorry, couldn't resist!" she apologized, laughing.

Optimus chose not to comment.

He drove out carefully, where upon she pressed the button again to close the door. Then he set out, maneuvering according to her directions.

"It'll take a little longer to get there, since we're not going on any busy roads, so that nobody spots you out as Optimus Prime."

"Affirmative."

* * *

"This is the road. Now you're gonna have to keep an eye – I mean, optic – out for the place, since I don't know exactly where you came from."

"Very well."

And Optimus found it in a few minutes. He pulled into small opening, got off the road and transformed. He set Lyra down on the ground and off his palm. Then he sat down on a particularly large boulder to wait. Seeing his intentions, Lyra sat down on the ground beside him.

They waited like this for half an hour. Lyra's attempts at conversation were not entirely got him to tell her a little more about his team, and his life back on Cybertron (aside from what she already knew). But she got bored of waiting.

"Are they… coming?" She asked, finally. Optimus turned his helm to gaze down at the small human. She was sweating profusely in the heat, which had tripled since they had arrived. "I mean, it's been at least thirty minutes, and I said ten…"

"They will come." He said confidently. He picked her up and placed her in his shadow, so that the heat was no longer so bad. "Thanks." She said tiredly.

"You are welcome." he said, shifting his gaze back to where it previously was.

They sat there for a few more minutes. Then suddenly, the ground bridge swirled into existence before them. Optimus stood up hastily, as did the girl sitting next to him.

"So… I guess this is goodbye?"

"Indeed. However, you have given me great assistance in my time of need – even though you are only Raf's age. For that, I thank you."

Lyra gave him a smile. "My pleasure. Though I didn't really do anything, just hauled you to the right place. And I'm a year younger than Raf, actually. I'm eleven. And a quarter."

The Prime gave her a quick, approving nod and made for the ground bridge. Just as he was about to step in:

"Visit some time, will ya?"

He turned back, smiling a small, rare smile of genuine happiness. Then he strode into the ground bridge. Maybe, when the war was over, and he had some free time on his hands…

* * *

"What kept you?" demanded Ratchet, back at base. "We thought we got the coordinates wrong."

"Business." replied Optimus coolly. "What caused the ground bridge to glitch?"

"A torn wire and a tiny organic called a cockroach." Ratchet shuddered. "Miko screamed her head off."

"I did not!" said human protested. It was then that Optimus noticed the three humans leaning railing, their respective guardians standing near them. Ratchet gave him a scan with his scanner. "Primus, your energon levels! Bumblebee, get a cube, quick!"

Bumblebee rushed off into the hallways. Now the entire team was looking at their leader weirdly.

"Optimus, where did you get buffed?" Arcee asked. Optimus' optics examined his armor. It wasn't actually too bad…

Bumblebee rushed in with a cube of energon. Optimus opened it and took a sip, replenishing his energon depleted systems.

"Seriously though, how was your trip to the other dimension?" asked Miko.

"We didn't even realize you were there! I just got your text a few minutes ago." added Jack.

Optimus frowned. "How is that possible? It had been half an hour…"

"Maybe time passes differently in different dimensions?" offered Raf.

"In any case," broke in Ratchet, "We are glad to have you back in one piece. What happened there, anyway?"

And so Optimus began his tale.

* * *

***Telephone number is imaginary.**

**Please review and tell me how I did for my first story! Good? Bad? Cliched? Original? Boring? Please tell me!**


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